


Interlude in D minor

by iskra667



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 16:23:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1353916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iskra667/pseuds/iskra667
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1817, Louis, Lestat, music, a playful interlude ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude in D minor

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is unfinished. It was supposed to continue into porn. As it is, there is just the romantic introduction.

I'm sitting at the piano and hear the door close softly. He is home. Only one set of familiar footsteps. She has taken to wandering the city on her own, my fierce, little golden Angel, the pride of my life, my talented, precocious daughter. He kicks his boots off by the door. Rue Royale, out there, is a foul cesspool of reeking mud. I wonder how mere mortals survive such pestilence. They are so fragile, mortals. The wind blowing a little too strongly, a pea swallowed the wrong way, a handsome blond stranger in a dark alley and hop, they are no more!

His stockinged feet make soft, whooshing sounds on the parquet as he drags himself aimlessly across the flat. I can tell, by the way he walks, that he is lonely. It makes him feel blue, I know, our little daughter claiming more and more independence, wandering off on some mysterious pursuits of her own, leaving him alone, purposeless. More and more, it is like tonight, just the two of us again. 

I continue playing. I am improvising on the written score, adding fioritures, ornamentations, affectations, little embellishments, a little bit over the top, in the pure Lestat style. What can I say? However fitted to damned creatures like us the brooding austerity of this century might be, I must admit I often miss my own. Its joyful innocence, its elegant shallowness, its affected preciosity. I have no ambition to actually improve on the score, no, I have too much respect for Monsieur Schubert, despite his tiresome propensity to grandiloquent gravity. Those Germans! No, really, I am only amusing myself. After all, that's what I do best.

Finally he approaches and sits himself by my side on the bench. Where Claudia sits when we play duets. But he just watches me, silently. I ignore him and improvise a complicated trill. 

“What are you playing?” he asks, softly, tentatively, as though afraid I might lash out at him for disturbing me. And indeed, on other nights, I might. But I just nudge with my chin to the sheet music on the stand. Schubert. Death and the Maiden Lied. Fresh from the printers and expedited from good, civilized, Old Europe.

He bends over to read it and I notice how a lock of his soft black hair, escaped from his ribbon, gracefully sways in the air as he moves. I need all my willpower not to brush it behind his ear. Not to touch him. He beams at me, then. The lyricist is one of those obscure, grandiloquent poets he likes so much. Him and his damn poetry.

“Would you mind playing this again from the beginning?” He asks shyly, and I almost glare at him, but then he adds “Please?” in such a sweet, childlike voice that my whole damn heart melts and I oblige him.

I start playing again from the beginning, dropping my affected embellishments. He is a man of austere, exquisite taste, never one to go for everything shiny the way I do. I do not sing the first verse, the Maiden's part. I could not quite yet find a key in which I do not sound foolish. This part is for Claudia, really, and I know he knows it as he reads the unsung words from the score. My beautiful, smart little daughter! She is getting just old enough to understand dark irony now and indeed, has developed quite a taste for it. I know she will love this song.

Oh! leave me! Prithee, leave me!   
Thou grisly man of bone!   
I am still young! Go, rather!   
Go! leave me now alone!   
Go! leave me now alone! 

I reach Death's part and start singing.

Give me thy hand, oh! maiden fair to see,   
For I'm a friend, hath ne'er distress'd thee.   
Take courage now, and very soon   
Within mine arms shalt softly rest thee!

I am unsure how to finish. There are two versions, one octave apart. Sopranos that can hit the lowest note always go for it, just to show off their vocal range, but I do not need such petty, cheap trick to demonstrate my preternatural vocal range. I could break all the windows in this room with my top note. I could send the whole block trembling with my bass. The lowest version is a bit cliché. Deep, somber, sinister Death. I quite like the highest one, its moral ambiguity, Death luring the innocent into His embrace with the soft, tempting voice of a lover. But I am often enough the cause of Death to know it is no funny business. Death is a dirty business indeed. I opt for brutal honesty. 

As I go for the lowest, sinister note, I strike an overly dramatic chord and turn to stare at him in mock gravity.

He laughs softly then, and my wicked heart skips a beat like every time I manage, even just for a little while, to drive away this draining melancholy of his with my ridiculous antics.

He looks at me fondly. “This suits you so well!” he says with a lopsided little smile, this little smile he has when he is unsuccessfully trying to refrain himself from smiling “This suits you so well it could have been written for you!” And he leans closer to whisper conspiratorially in my ear “Gentleman Death!”

His smile, the carefree lightness in his voice make me giddy then and I pull him roughly to me, making him fall backwards against me and embracing his chest in an iron grip. “What does it feel like, to be in the arms of Death, Beautiful One?” I ask dramatically in the deepest voice I can manage. 

“Fateful” he replies stoically, and I fear he might fight me off, and I tighten my grip, but he doesn't. He is leaning willingly against me and his eyes are gleaming. I melt then, and I lean forward gently to kiss him, and he is kissing me back, a sweet kiss, his soft tongue gently tracing my lips, tentatively sucking at me when I force myself in.

I break the kiss after a while, and he tries to get up, but I pull him back down forcefully on my lap.

“Lestat!” he protests, but when I grip his waist and shifts him authoritatively to make him sit on my left thigh, he complies easily enough and settles down. He looks down at me in curiosity and I take hold of his left hand in mine and put it on the keyboard. 

“You know I can't play!” he objects, slightly annoyed. 

“Hush!” I order, as I arrange his fingers one by one. Such graceful, long fingers. Pianist fingers. He could easily play if he wanted to, I could easily teach him. But I guess he's just not that interested in it. “Just a simple chord! A monkey could do it!” I mock, as I lay my hand on top of his and gently press it down on the keys. The chord strikes. Not a clever rhythm, or anything, but it strikes. 

“Don't move!” I order sternly, as I start playing a silly melody with my right hand. At regular intervals, I press his hand down to mark the rhythm. Just this one chord, over and over again, I guess a monkey would play better than us but I doubt it would have as much fun. I see that he is frowning in concentration. He might know but one chord, but he is determined to get it right, my conscientious fledgling.

I start singing along. A very crude French drinking song, with lyrics coarse enough to make a tavern whore blush. Louis blushes, but I notice with satisfaction that he continues to strike his chord dutifully when I nudge him too.

When the song is over, I grab his hand in mine and swipe it over the keyboard in a most unmusical racket. 

He laughs again, then, and shifts on my lap to look at me. “I hope you do not intend to teach this song to Claudia!” he chides in mock severity, but I can feel that there is a hint of genuine concern in his voice. As though he could never quite fathom the extent of my supposedly endless Evilness and never quite dared to discount the worst.

“Of course not!” I protest with my best innocently outraged face. “But I thought I could teach it to you!” I continue with my most evil grin.

“You know I can't play!” he repeats again, annoyed. He does not quite know where I'm heading and it's making him nervous.

“I thought we could rather … act it!” I purr suggestively, wriggling my eyebrows.

I feel him tense, then, but he does not move away as I half expected. He knots an arm around my neck but his expression is tortured. “Claudia ?” he whispers in grief.

“... will be occupied for another good two hours spying on those unfortunate mortals, as you very well know.” I finish for him, and it hits me, then, the painful realization, how so very easy it is to make him want me. All I have to do is be witty, make him laugh, amuse him, be patient for a bit and he is all but melting against me. Just be my natural self for a bit and he is all but ready to fling himself into my waiting arms. Why, I wonder, why for the love of God can't I just do that more often? Why is it so damn difficult? Does his very willingness frighten me? This power that he has, without any conscious effort on his part, to make me tailor my every act to suit his moods, his desire, to please him? Forget my very self in him.

But I am interrupted in those dark thoughts as he knots his other arm arm around my neck, kisses the top of my head and leans to lay his head on my shoulder. He looks at me with hopeful, longing eyes. I grin at him, and snakes an arm underneath his knee and instantly, he squirms fiercely, knowing what I intend to do. But his childlike attempt is no match for me, of course, and soon I have him swept up, and he tightens his hold on my neck with a resigned sigh.

I carry him across the flat to my bedroom, my Darling, my Beloved, all quiescent and willing in my arms. I stop in front of my door. “ I need help, here!” I observe, pretending to drop him, and he squirms most obligingly even though he knows full well I will do no such thing. I could easily open the door with my mind, of course, but I don't like showing too much of my powers, lest he would start again with his maddening questions, asking how I do it and why he can't do it, and things might degenerate. I know better than to ruin such a perfect moment of bliss with poisonous words. And maybe I simply enjoy watching him as he obliges me and opens the door with his stockinged toes. He giggles childishly when the door opens and plants a wet kiss on the side of my face.


End file.
